On this day 25 years ago (Commentary Thread)

[chico20854]

Well, there's quite a lot they and the UK could have done about it. Not that the world needed any more mushroom clouds sprouting at that point, but I do wonder when and how seriously discussions of nuclear retaliation might have gone on among what was left of the US and UK governments.

Thanks for that pointer, an angle I hadnt really considered. (The language about the US having little option is straight out of RDF Sourcebook.) Hopefully today's post adds a little clarity, although I welcome discussion on its reasonableness!

[Homer]

The 1km exclusion zone is going to frustrate some French leaders. Places like Buchel and Norvenich have USAF Munitions Squadrons supporting dual key special weapons on Luftwaffe bases while Woensdrecht hosts a GLCM wing on a Dutch airbase.

[chico20854]

January 4, 1998

As relocation and disorder continue in the US, city dwellers flee to the country and the country folk are not prepared to deal with what rapidly comes to seem to them as an invasion. Initial efforts of humanity and goodwill toward the victims of a nuclear attack rapidly turn into a grim battle of survival between seemingly endless mobs of refugees and the embattled farmers trying to save their food crops, then their seed crops, and finally themselves and their families from the ravaging deprivations of hungry, cold and desperate city folk. Northern Ohio has been severely depopulated by the nuclear strikes on the cities of Lima and Toledo and the fallout from the Michigan and Canadian nuclear strikes. Most of the population of the large urban centers of Ohio flee to the rural areas without encouragement by the relocation orders.

Even with all the goodwill and humanitarian intentions in the world, nothing could have prevented much of the suffering of the winter of 1997-1998. In Florida, there were just too many people and not enough of anything else. Left to freeze in the dark, New England's urban populace began a blind search for warmth and food. More than ten million people began descending on the farms and picturesque towns in the countryside. Hundreds of thousands died each month of illness, hunger or winter exposure. Thousands more died each day in the fighting that erupted as the farmers and citizens of the towns tried to stop the locust-like approach of the urban refugees. Even when there were surplus foodstuffs, the resources could not be delivered to where they were needed most; no communications network existed to identify stocks, and no effective central authority remained to coordinate the relief effort.

Unfortunately, there was more than enough evil, malicious and deliberately criminal misconduct, misinformation, and out-and-out disinformation circulating to compound the horror beyond any hope of retrieval by men of goodwill.

The fires and destruction in the US caused by the bombs are gradually brought under control, and governmental control of most urban areas is slowly regained (although some cities, like Boston, are never really brought back to order after the strikes). Civil unrest in New England has settled down as it becomes clear that New England is not to be a target. Only extreme measures bring back a semblance of order to New York City. Millions have died in New York City during and after the nuclear attacks and millions more have fled. Because of the damaged transportation network and the lack of fuel, there are minor distribution inequalities and some civil discontent, but little out-and-out rioting.

The American harvest of 1997 was larger than average, but it is not evenly distributed through the country. Most of it is still in silos and elevators in the Midwest. The large harvest had driven commodities prices down, and many farmers have withheld part of their harvest in hopes of getting higher prices later in the year. Theoretically, this grain is also subject to rationing, but there is a great deal of concealment in on-farm storage bins by individual farmers. Fuel is also hoarded, although both of these actions are illegal.

The mayor of Aldergrove, BC, Walter Rousseau, with support from local RCMP members, assumes dictatorial powers over the town.

One of the Atlantic fleet's last operable nuclear attack submarines, the USS Newport News, surrenders her berth and heads back to sea, leaving New London for the last time.

Unofficially,

The container-barge carrier Kirin Carrier is delivered in Mobile, Alabama. It, like its sister delivered a week and a half prior, is taken over by the US government. This marks the end of new ship construction in Quincy.

Paratroops of the 13th Guards Air Assault Division fall upon the lightly held outpost line of the 1st Brigade, 47th Infantry Division's 1st Battalion, 168th Infantry (Iowa National Guard) in a driving snowstorm, driving the startled guardsmen from their positions into the snow.

In northern California, members of the Hells Angels biker gang knock out the power to the Pelican Bay State Penitentiary with well-aimed rifle fire, then descend on the prison. The prison's guard force, understrength due to the draft and desertion in the weeks since the nuclear attacks, is oriented against threats from inside the prison, and within 15 minutes the bikers have captured the prison's command center (assisted by liberal application of demolitions against barriers and heavy steel doors). The bikers release the inmates within; their members and other prisoners that have a biker vouch for them remain at the heavily protected facility. The Hells Angels have gained a hardened facility and over 300 additional recruits.

More French and Belgian units arrive in southern Holland, linking up with the previously isolated French 8th Marine Parachute Regiment. The Dutch territorials of the 302nd Infantry Brigade have expended their remaining artillery ammunition and anti-tank weapons (mostly 1950-vintage M20 3.5-inch Super Bazooka rounds, everything more modern long ago sent to fight the Soviets). They begin retreating to the northwest as engineer parties complete the opening of dykes and irrigation systems, turning the low-lying polder into freezing swampland.

To the east, the 101st Mechanized Brigade arrives in Eindhoven from the Leeuwarden area minutes before the lead Scimitar and Scorpion light tanks of the Belgian 4th Regiment of Chasseurs Cheval, the lead reconnaissance element of the Belgian I Corps. (The Belgian Corps has split, with the main body heading up the Meuse valley and a secondary effort headed for Dusseldorf on the Rhine). The French II Corps has overrun the final organized elements of the German territorial 45th Grenadier Regiment and reached the Rhine opposite Wiesbaden, leaving several large American garrisons isolated. In the center of the Franco-Belgian effort, I French Corps has brushed aside the remnants of the territorial 42nd and 46th Grenadier Regiments and advanced, despite the efforts of the various German obstacle detachments, past the exclusion zones surrounding Spangdahlem and Bitburg Air Bases where they are held up by a scratch force of Luftwaffe trainees at Ulmen.

[chico20854]

January 5, 1998

The unusually harsh winter which followed the nuclear exchange compound the real problems Florida faces a hundred-fold, and finally this constant and effective hate campaign smashes the floodgates of insanity. The attempts by what remains of the civil and military authorities to keep a lid on things fail dismally. A war of extermination begins to be waged across what could have been a semitropical garden of Eden. The resulting hysteria makes it an absolute risk to one's life to admit even knowing someone from Tampa or any of the other stricken communities within the state. People are pulled out of cars on the highway and lynched by fear-crazed mobs because they have automobile tags that had been originally issued in Hillsborough County. Others are summarily shot for the crime of having been born in one of the stricken zones. Wild rumors fly about stating that this or that innocent and unsuspecting community is a radiation "hot spot" and that those coming from such places bring the unseen and undetectable "germs" of radiation poisoning with them to contaminate places not yet stricken. Within a week the population of Tampa has plummeted to less than 10 percent of its prewar total. Within a month the city is a virtual ghost town, and the survivors are being hunted and harried over the countryside.

The main actors in this communal bloodbath include not only the displaced criminal elements of the big city, but also ordinary urban dwellers - mothers and fathers with children to feed and somehow protect from the freezing rains and unchecked diseases. Millions of these people battle a relative handful of farmers trying to save their own livelihoods and the lives of their own wives and children. Even without the artificially stirred-up hatreds, the twin scourges of disease and famine are hard at work winnowing the dead chaff from the few survivors. The harsh winter brings other dislocated and hungry people down into the zone of darkness and blood. Armed marauder bands spread chaos and destruction and waste more than they took.

Soviet troops cross the border from Alaska into Yukon Territory, able to mass sufficient firepower to overrun the scattered outposts of the 47th Infantry Division. Supplies begin to run low, however, as the distances increase and the winter weather takes a toll on the requisitioned civilian vehicles the Soviet troops are relying on for mobility.

The nuclear attacks force an abandonment of the effort reactivate the 106th Infantry Division. Only the 422nd Infantry Regiment, formed in early 1997 from reservists and draftees, constituting three battalions of the 422nd and two batteries of the 591st Field Artillery, has been fully trained and equipped.

As the nuclear exchange peters out and the home situation deteriorates, a number of British battalions are sent from Germany to England to help enforce martial law.

KGB Colonel Borisov, living off the British countryside during the winter, is one of the few agents not rounded up during the army's purge of known Soviet agents.

Unofficially,

A patrol of the 78th Training Division in Trenton, New Jersey, is unexpectantly engaged in a firefight when they stumble across an organized group of looters who have just finished sacking a neighborhood which the division's troops had just finished evacuating two days before. The poorly trained troops (most have completed basic training but not their advanced skill training, led by their training company's admin clerk) lose three men and are unsuccesful in preventing the looters from escaping.

The Belgian 16th Mechanized Division's 10th Mechanized Brigade engages the Dutch 101st Mechanized Brigade on the southern outskirts of Eindhoven. The Dutch fall back and the Belgian division's 17th Armored Brigade comes swooping in from the east, the guns of their Leopard Is inflicting havoc on the hapless Dutch reservists. The command falls apart, with bands of men drifting away to the north. The lead units of the Dutch I Corps cross the Waal and Meuse between 's-Hertogenbosch and Nijmegen. The French III Corps' 2nd and 10th Armored Divisions (each with about half the troops and firepower of an equivalent prewar NATO division) clear the towns of Breda and Tilburg, respectively, and clear the continued resistance of territorials, reservists and constabulary troops that offer scattered resistance south of the Rhine. The Luftwaffe recruit detachment at Ulmen sustains a day of furious French artillery fire and several dismounted infantry attacks, turning each back in turn. In the far west, the Dutch defense of Vlissingen comes to an end as the defending marines and territorials come under attack from land and sea; after darkness falls the remains of the Dutch 2nd Marine Amphibious Combat Group slip out of the burning city aboard a fleet of small craft, intent on waging a continuing guerrilla campaign against the occupying Belgian and French troops.

Massive fires light the night sky over Sigonella, Sicily as the final American and Allied personnel evacuate the naval base and adjacent airfield. The departing troops burn the repair facilities, headquarters, barracks, warehouses, create craters in the airfield's runway and taxiways, collapse aircraft shelters and, the action that hurts the American sailors the most, set the damaged carrier USS America ablaze.

The Coast Guard medium-endurance cutter Thetis arrives at Diego Garcia, which was struck by a pair of Soviet nuclear missiles 30 days prior. The ship launches its helicopter for an aerial survey of the damage, conducting a radiological survey (what little residual radiation from the 200-kiloton airbursts has largely dispersed by trade winds and tides in the month since the attack) and identifying sunken obstacles to navigation in the atoll's lagoon.

[pmulcahy11b]

January 4, 1998
They begin retreating to the northwest as engineer parties complete the opening of dykes and irrigation systems, turning the low-lying polder into freezing swampland.

That's dike. "Dyke" is an offensive term for certain segments of the population that I won't go into here. Don't want us to get into any inadvertent trouble.

[kato13]

Dykes is the preferred plural

[chico20854]

January 6, 1998

The first pitched battle between local landowners and refugees is fought at a large refugee camp outside Butler, Pennsylvania (near Pittsburgh).

Since certain zoo animals - the large carnivores particularly - represented a danger to humans, zoo officials were ordered by local governments and by military authorities to destroy them in the event of a nuclear attack. Not all of the dangerous animals are killed, however. In the chaos following the nuclear attack, many zookeepers die or flee before they could carry out their duties. Others release favorite animals rather than kill them. Some people release animals en masse, believing that all living creatures deserve a fair chance. Some animals become desperate for food and water and break out when their keepers no longer come. The animals which are released or escape meet various fates. Most die, temperamentally unsuited to life on their own. Many are killed for food or because they are obviously dangerous. Others die in the harsh winter weather after the attacks, and a few manage to escape the cities completely.

By this point, many people who are in an American undamaged city are reluctant to simply pick up and leave. Conditions are still not too bad over most of the nation, and nobody wants to desert the security of their homes and possessions (relocatees are only allowed 50 kilograms of baggage) to go to some unspecified place in the country. The relocation buses, trains, and boats become increasingly difficult to fill. Rumors of what happens to relocatees when they arrive do not help matters. Rural communities are unwilling to have large numbers of outsiders forced upon them. There are shortages of just about everything, and the "relokies," as they are called, are subject to almost constant hostility from the local populace.

Conditions continue to deteriorate across the United States. Rural Americans are not happy to have untold thousands of homeless hungry urbanites thrust upon them, and violence flares against the refugees in many places. More often, a rural community accepts its quota of refugees, then turns them out when the troops had left. It is not surprising that a sizable number of "relokies" chose to leave at the first opportunity.

A number of British ports remain functional, most notably Margate in northern Kent and Portsmouth in Hampshire. Anglesey becomes a haven for surviving British forces in Wales as it is physically untouched by the war and is naturally easy to defend.

The Dutch 5th Mechanized Division is hit hard by French airstrikes in the vicinity of Nijmegen as it closes on the town of Eindhoven in an attempt to halt the advancing Belgians.

Unofficially,

Turmoil roils the high level of NATO command as the alliance struggles to respond to the French invasion of Germany and the Netherlands. The Dutch and German military commands (which are effectively their national governments in the wake of the nuclear devestation of their homelands) are livid with SACEUR for his deal with the French that essentially yields their territory without bringing the full military might of the alliance to bear to stop the invasion. SACEUR replies that the deal is the least bad option and that it at least will yield some compensation from the French while simultaneously relieving the respective governments of the responsibility for sustaining the refugees in the territory (he had demanded that there be no expulsions of population by the French and Belgian authorities). Pointing to the dire condition of NATO combat forces at the front, SACEUR has no non-nuclear means available to halt the French agression, as pulling troops from the line or allocating additional scarce resources will leave the front against the Soviets dangerously vulnerable. The German command grudgingly accepts this statement, noting that it has been unable to divert significant resources to defending the territory, other than cancelling the planned offensive against the Czechs and Soviets in the Hof-Nuremburg-Regensburg area.

The Belgian air force's F-16 fleet is grounded as the clear skies over the front allow the remaining Dutch F-16s to make an appearance overhead; the Franco-Belgian command fears fratricide as well as wanting to preserve the limited supply of spare parts and munitions for the fighters. The Dutch 1st Mechanized Division, hardened veterans after a year of action and the Czechs, Soviets and Italians, tear into the French 5e Rgiment d'Infanterie, part of the 2nd Armored Division, southwest of 's-Hertogenbosch. The French combined-arms battalion is strung out along the highway through flooded fields, where the guns of the remaining Dutch Leopard II's are able to wreak the French column. Dutch MLRS rockets of the 101st Artillery Group sow submunitions among the column and the road behind it, preventing reinforcements from hurrying to the rescue.

In Germany, the Luftwaffe training unit is finally blasted out of its positions outside Ulmen as the French commit the 4th Airmobile Division to leapfrog the blocking position and direct precision fires against the German positions.

RainbowSix reports that HM Government is preparing an assessment of surviving facilities. One is the Hamworthy refinery located close to the Port of Poole. The refinery had suffered particularly heavy damage during a series of concentrated raids in August 1997 that forced it to shut down whilst the damage was repaired. The British Government managed to successfully fool the Soviets into thinking that their airstrikes had destroyed the facility when MI5 arranged for false documents to be passed to a known Soviet agent. The ruse worked and the refinery was spared a Soviet nuclear warhead.

The Freedom-class cargo ship Buffalo Freedom is delivered in San Diego, California.

The Aegis cruiser USS Vincennes is sunk by four 65-76 torpedoes fired by the Victor III-class submarine 60 Let Shefstva VLKSM 325nm NNW of Ascension Island while on an voyage to secure supplies of food from Argentina.

The USCG cutter Thetis lands its assessment team on Diego Garcia. While the overpressure and heat from the blasts stripped the occupied area of the island of vegetation and destroyed all unhardened structures in the central part of the base area, it left the airbase's twin 12,000-foot runways intact and several secondary underground faciltiies (overflow fuel tanks and such) intact, as well as the extensive magazine complex, space observation station and communications facility several kilometers away on the remote southern end of the island.

[chico20854]

January 7, 1998

Although Chicago itself was not a target, the oil refineries at Joliet were, and this is enough to panic the population of the city and surrounding suburbs. Food shortages are not severe except in large urban areas, and most deaths are caused by epidemics and rioting.

A mass prison break from Matsqui Penitentiary in British Columbia, orchestrated by Tom "Fang" Strakes occurs. Most prisoners disperse into the countryside south of the Frasier River, but some remain and form the Razorheads marauder gang.

Anglia has escaped damage during the first nuclear exchange, which attracts many refugees to the area. The local population resists this invasion, and open warfare erupts. Some towns manage to force back the refugees, but in the majority of cases, sheer weight of numbers win the battle. When the refugees get into the towns, they find that the situation is not as good as they had been led to believe and fighting for the few good spots breaks out among the refugee groups. The fighting dies down as winter approaches.

The Dutch 105th Recon Battalion inflicts heavy casualties on the Belgian 7th Mechanized Brigade on the approaches to Arnhem.

Konstantin P. Yermolaev, commander of the 10th Guards Motor-Rifle Division, is promoted to Major General in Iran.

Unofficially

The 49th Armored Division struggles under the burden of trying to secure one of America's largest cities and is forced to cede control of some areas (most notably the remnants of Chicago's South Side) to the armed gangs that have threatened food and fuel convoys, requiring more resources to escort than the divisional commander has.

In order to conserve fuel, the destroyer Morton is travelling alone at 12 knots through Indonesian waters. (The ship's bunkers don't carry enough fuel for the 5500-mile voyage at the usual cruising speed of 17 knots, and refueling is unlikely along the way). The warship is approached at dawn by a small flotilla of armed small craft (the largest is an 8-meter customs boat mounting a 20mm cannon), who approach the destroyer despite radio calls to keep a distance. Soon a surface action has erupted, the destroyer using one of its 5-inch main guns to blast the customs boat out of the water and deck mounted 25mm cannons and machineguns to drive off the smaller craft.

The Dutch 5th Mechanized Division (in reality less than a brigade in strength after the attrition of the German campaign of 1997 and the prior day's French airstrikes) tries to hold the advancing Belgians from entering Nijmegen, but short of fuel and ammunition, is forced to displace, leaving many of its remaining vehicles behind, their gas tanks empty. To the west, the 1st Mechanized Division fights another sharp engagement against the invading French, launching another flank attack, this one on the 8th Infantry Division's 67e Rgiment d'Infanterie; the French motorized infantry unit's VAB armored cars proving exceedingly vulnerable to fire from Dutch APCs and AIFVs emplaced in the engineer training center at Vught outside 's-Hertenbosch.

On the German front, Belgian reconnaissance units have reached the Rhine opposite Duisburg, halting while German territorials destroy the road and rail bridges over the Rhine. The French II Corps resumes its drive north along the banks of the Rhine, creating a large pocket of disorganized German troops and tens of thousands of displaced civilians sheltering in and near the cluster of American installations in Baumholder.

At Diego Garcia, a team from the USCG's cutter Thetis continues its survey of the lagoon's anchorage. One pier is blocked by the sunken Cypriot freighter Ever Happy, as are three of the atoll's 20 dredged anchorage sites. The team ashore, haven broken into one of the explosives magazines, reports that there likely are several hundred tons of iron bombs present but that the airfield facilities (hangars, landing aids, fuel pipeline system, power, water and accommodations) are all destroyed beyond repair. Tactical or field-expedient systems will be needed to restore the base to operations, limited by the capabilities of those systems.

[chico20854]

January 8, 1998

The 49th Armored Division, which has been deployed in a disaster relief and emergency security role in the northern Illinois and Indiana area, is moved out of the Chicago metropolitan area. The division's 1st Brigade moves to Fort McCoy, Wisconsin, 2nd Brigade to Camp Atterbury, Indiana, and 3rd Brigade and division headquarters to Springfield, Illinois. Likewise, the 46th Infantry Division is deployed on a variety of security and disaster relief missions along the eastern seaboard. Also leaving the Chicago area is the 35th Engineer Brigade (Combat), which moves into downstate Illinois to secure the energy resources there (oil fields, coal mines, the Robinson and Mount Vernon refineries) and food reserves of the region's bountiful farms. In Texas, a Navy salvage expedition withdraws the remaining operable aircraft from the lightly-damaged Corpus Christi Naval Air Station to the (unofficially) Memphis Naval Air Station.

The Dutch high command orders the remnants of the 5th Mechanized Division withdrawn across the Rhine for reconstruction. The Dutch 105th Recon Battalion is forced back to the Rhine from its defense of Arnhem. As it falls back, the advancing French and Belgian troops are engaged by the Dutch 4th Mechanized Division in a classic meeting engagement.

Unofficially,

The 1st Armored Brigade (Training) halts training at Fort Knox, Kentucky and dedicates all resources towards accommodating the over 100,000 refugees seeking shelter on and around the base.

The destroyer USS Morton is once again approached by pirates in Indonesian waters. Once again the crew is forced to open fire to drive off the attackers.

To the west, the 1st Mechanized Division is under pressure in 's-Hertenbosch as the French III Corps (provided with abundant air support by the French Air Force and the Mirage 5s of the Belgian Air Force) has massed troops on all the approaches to the city. The 101st Artillery Group fires its last two Lance missiles at logistic sites in northern Belgium. (The missiles are conventional cluster munitions, their American nuclear weapon custodial units having remained behind in southern Germany when I Dutch Corps displaced).

French and Belgian troops are busy establishing occupation authorities in the Dutch provinces of Zeeland and Limburg and the areas of Brabant that they control, as they are as well in areas in Germany that they control.

The campaign in Germany is winding down as remaining German troops are either defeated or withdraw across the Rhine. French field commanders grow increasingly irritated with the restrictions on their operations imposed by the presence of (mostly) American garrisons and the attendant exclusion zones, as well as the demand that they restore electrical power and water to the bases, with requirements for food and fuel still being developed by the isolated American commanders.

With winter weather arriving, the Danish containership Susan Mae weighs anchor from the New York Bight and sails around Long Island, seeking shelter in Long Island Sound.

In Iran, the units of XVIII Airborne Corps and III MEF begin falling back into the Zagros Mountains following the success of Operation Pegasus II. The move frees up several infantry battalions for duty securing the supply lines and rear areas, which have grown increasingly chaotic as various armed bands of deserters, smugglers, bandits and enemy special operations teams seek to eke out an existence preying on the civilian population and military traffic in the allied area of control. To their north and east, Transcaucasian Front is in no condition to occupy the territory evacuated, starved of supplies and replacements; Soviet commanders devote their efforts to securing food and fuel for their units and trying to prevent desertion from wearing their units down past the point of ineffectiveness.

STAVKA (or the remnants thereof) orders the deployment of the 260th Motor-Rifle Division in the Ural Military District. The mobilization-only division, located at Shadrinsk on the steppes of Siberia, has been forming since July, although other divisions were higher priority in receiving men and equipment. In fact, the declaration is more a reflection of the dire circumstances of the Soviet government than of the divisions condition, but nonetheless the division takes responsibility for maintaining order in its area of the country.

[chico20854]

January 9, 1998

In New York City, grocery stores, convenience stores, drug stores, liquor stores, gun stores, jewelry stores, electronics stores, waterfront warehouses, gas stations, apartments more or less easily accessible from the street-these and countless other possible sources of salvageable items are emptied. Another waterborne gang is formed. The Ferrymen are under the leadership of Cap Winston, a longshoreman who seizes control of a Staten Island ferry, securing the fuel already aboard and a small store ashore.

Unofficially,

The West Point student body and cadre is designated the 1st Cadet Brigade and assigned internal security and disaster relief duties as streams of refugees continue to travel up the Hudson River Valley.

In a bid to prevent the British from using its output, the Whitegate Oil Refinery in Cork, Ireland, the nation's sole refinery, in peacetime producing over 40 percent of its fuel, is hit by a Soviet SS-C-4 cruise missile fired by the 101st Missile Regiment, 44th Missile Division in the western Ukraine. (The missile flight is noted by NATO air defense radars as it passes overhead at low level, but commanders are unable to successfully engage it, such is the shortage of missiles and poor state of the C3I network).

Another day of heavy fighting rages in southern Holland as the French III Corps faces off against the Dutch I Corps. The veteran Dutch troops are running low on supplies, while the lavishly-supplied French troops are exploiting the lessons they have learned at such great cost over the preceding week. Outside Arnhem, the 4th Mechanized Division is engaged in heavy fighting against French armored units as the Belgians are shunted aside, while the 1st Mechanized Division (reinforced with the 103rd Recon Battalion) holds onto 's-Hertenbosch despite intense French bombardment.

Tension in the Romanian city of Trgu Mureș is steadily rising as the local population, already hostile (as most loyal Romanians are), grows increasingly irate at the failure of the Soviet occupation force (built around the 146th Motor-Rifle Division) to provide either security, food or fuel, instead hoarding what little is available in the harsh post-exchange environment for itself. A demonstration outside the division headquarters, which quickly escalates to scuffles with the headquarters guard, is broken up with gunfire ordered by the panicked senior lieutenant on duty.

[chico20854]

January 10, 1998

The Special Facility at Mount Weather is abandoned for other, more secure locations within the so-called Federal Relocation Arc, an area within a 100-mile radius of Washington, DC. The Charters of Freedom (the Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Bill of Rights) are sealed in a deep secure vault under the facility, which retains a small security and caretaker staff.

UBF leader John Carlucci receives word that his wife, Tamara, last reported in Boston, likely became a casualty of the disorder.

Unofficially,

US XI Corps consolidates its surviving corps-level artillery troops and systems into the 151st Field Artillery Brigade, disbanding the 45th Field Artillery Brigade, whose remaining guns and gunners go to the 151st and excess command and support personnel are assigned to other XI Corps units.

As Dutch lines begin to give way after another sleepless night under unrelenting French artillery fire, the Dutch high command reluctantly orders the abandonment of the positions south of the Rhine. The 1st Mechanized Division crosses into the Utrecht area, while the 4th Mechanized withdraws into the ruins of the city of Arnhem, destroyed in battle for the second time in the 20th Century.

The remaining five F-16s of the Dutch Air Force are evacuated to British RAF bases in East Anglia.

Local resistance leaders (the ethnic Romanian remnants of the former city and military administration) in the Romanian city of Trgu Mureș organize a blockade of the Soviet 146th Motor-Rifle Division's headquarters in the city's historic medieval citadel. The city's local Hungarian minority is less hostile to the Soviets, although sharing the Romanian's outrage at the lack of food and fuel in the harsh Balkan winter. Lone Soviet soldiers are kidnapped and killed, lone vehicles attacked and columns of vehicles foolish enough to venture through the city after dark are ambushed.

[Rainbow Six]

Thanks for that pointer, an angle I hadnt really considered. (The language about the US having little option is straight out of RDF Sourcebook.) Hopefully today's post adds a little clarity, although I welcome discussion on its reasonableness!

When I was writing the UK stuff I thought about that angle but always presumed that it would be a classic example of realpolitik in action and there was no way that the UK would want to invite either French nuclear retaliation or the possibility of dragging the French into the War in Europe as an enemy. Hence the line in my work that the British Ambassador in Paris delivers a note of protest and that's as far as it goes (although it was probably a strongly worded note of protest...)

In other words, forget NATO article 5, western Germany would be thrown under the bus.

[chico20854]

January 11, 1998

As the battered and bruised attack submarine USS City of Corpus Christi remains in drydock, the remaining powers that be in the US Navy decide that, while she is badly needed at sea, she is due for a reactor overhaul. The remaining shipyard workers begin to amass the material needed for the job.

Colonel Alfred White (US Army, Ret.) repeats his offer to form a volunteer combat unit formed from WW II re-enactor groups and civilian military vehicle collectors. When he previous offered the unit to the military in early 1997, he was rejected out of hand. Now, after the Thanksgiving Day massacre and the losses worldwide as the war went nuclear, his offer is accepted. He begins to rally his volunteers and their vehicles at the now-emptied Savannah Army Depot on the banks of the Mississippi in northwestern Illinois.

Opposite French forces in Germany, refugees pile up on the French and Belgian frontiers, a large lawless zone springs into existence. Open fighting for food is followed by mass starvation and disease, until the lawless zone has become barren and empty.

Unofficially,

The 199th Infantry Brigade is ordered, ready or not, to Korea from Hawaii to reinforce Eighth Army.

RainbowSix reports that the region of the Welsh border counties of Shropshire, Hereford and Worcester is caught between two waves of large scale refugee movements as people pour out of the cities of the West Midlands and South Wales seeking the perceived safety of the countryside, leading to a number of clashes between locals and refugees. To the west, North Wales has escaped any direct damage from the nuclear attack on Britain, although the eastern regions are very close to the heavily populated north west of England which was heavily damaged by the nuclear detonations. The mass influx of refugees and marauding gangs from England prompts the formation of the Welsh Assembly Government (in Welsh Llywodraeth Cynulliad Cymru or LCC) after parts of North Wales are overrun by marauding gangs from England. GDW reports that the Welsh Nationalist Party takes advantage of the chaos to seize control of the country.

Fighting south of the Rhine in the Netherlands comes to a halt with the withdrawal of the last Dutch combat formations, although occupation forces are frequently engaged by holdouts and stragglers as an active resistance network begins to form. French reconnaissance units approach Utrecht but are halted by Dutch roadblocks; the commander of III French Corps orders that they hold their position. (The recon troops had advanced to determine the status of Dutch military forces north of the river in case French and Belgian units would need to secure the opposite shore of the river to prevent infiltration of refugees; the presence of Dutch troops indicates that the Dutch government retains active control of the region).

[chico20854]

January 12, 1998

In Pittsburgh, many who had fled the city have returned. The city has not been nuked yet and the winter is cold, and the residents of surrounding rural communities are unenthusiastic in their reception of urban refugees. To the east, many of those trapped in the crossroads of Breezewood, Pennsylvania die fighting over remaining reserves of gasoline and food, and others manage to escape to other areas. The survivors are soon joined by refugees coming east from New Jersey and New York, seeking safety in the mountains. The large number of empty motel rooms, though lacking heat or electricity or even running water, provide the beginnings of a refugee city with a population of well over 5,000.

The Canadian 4th Mechanized Brigade (my 1st Division) is transferred from command of the US V Corps to the US XI Corps when V Corps is moved to occupation duty in central Germany.

Unofficially,

Ellsworth Air Force Base is abandoned, six weeks after it was struck by Soviet ICBMs. The remaining Security Police begin an epic midwinter trek across the frozen plains guarding several heavily loaded trucks that contain the assembled nuclear warheads from the base's missiles and remaining bombs from the munitions bunkers. The convoy is headed for Colorado Springs, Colorado.

In Atlanta a rumor spreads that CNN has been operating thanks to a large cache of food and fuel hidden in the network headquarters' basement. A crowd of 30,000 desperate people soon gathers and overruns the building, ending American TV broadcasting for several years.

NATO naval commanders in Europe, facing a severe lack of fuel for their combatants and a collapse of the worldwide trading system, organize the layup of much of the shipping in the North Sea. Idle ships have begun to clog the few remaining intact ports, crews have started to abandon their vessels and there are more cargo ships available than there is cargo for them. Facing harsh winter weather, several convoys are organized to remote anchorages in Norwegian fjords and sheltered harbors along the British coast.

[chico20854]

January 13, 1998

The destruction of Toledo and Lima in Ohio in December triggered a vast migration east from Cleveland, Akron, and Columbus. These refugees avoid Pittsburgh itself, fearful of another escalation in the continuing nuclear exchange, but vast refugee camps grow up in smaller towns throughout the region between the Allegheny Mountains, Lake Erie, and the Ohio Border. Refugee camps are established outside many of the towns and cities in the region, especially in such transportation centers as New Castle, Butler, the towns along the Ohio River, and, once fear of further nuclear attacks had receded, near Pittsburgh. The relatively small populations of the smaller towns are rapidly overwhelmed in numbers and in political power by the refugees, and Pittsburgh, partly depopulated during the chaotic weeks following the nuclear attacks, is overrun by them. Refugee migrations from the west enter Beaver County along the Pennsylvania Turnpike and from the area around New Castle to the north. Large numbers have already crossed the Ohio River and settled around Aliquippa and in Raccoon Creek State Park. In Washington County to the south, citizens alarmed at the influx of refugees and by reports of what is happening north of Pittsburgh, form a self-defense militia.

Unofficially,

As a result of the harsh words and clashing visions between USCG Commandant Holsbirger and First Maritime Defense District Commander Scott MacDowell, MacDowell begins developing a plan to use his remaining forces to maintain control of two facilities he believes are absolutely critical to the future of the Navy and Coast Guard: Portsmouth Naval Yard and Bath Iron Works. At the same time, MacDowell intends to provide security and support for the fishing fleets operating out of Maine, New Hampshire, and northern Massachusetts. Holsbirger can take care of the fishing fleets operating out of Rhode Island, Connecticut, and points south with his own ships and people.

With the fighting in the Rhine wound down, French and NATO authorities meet to make arrangement for the repatriation of Allied forces and the evacuation of facilities from the occupied zone. The burden of supporting the effort is to fall solely upon the French and Belgian governments, which begin mobilizing civilian trucking and rail assets as Army and Air Force engineers work to clear and improve transit routes. The first shipment of foodstuffs are delivered to the USAF Ramstein Air Base, which hosts over 2500 American airmen and soldiers and 15,000 refugees. The DIA Amsterdam station chief travels to Paris to meet with DGSE officials to hammer out the details of the larger assistance package agreed to by SACEUR and French commanders; the American ambassador in Paris implores the General not to refer to the package as "reparations".